The International Legal Protection of Children in Street Situations

The book conducts a comprehensive analysis of codified international legal instruments and documents in their application to children in street situations, employing soft law documents to elucidate treaty interpretation and supplement existing legal standards. The research adopts a holistic approach, correlating international legal instruments with root causes and consequences for children in street situations, while systematically examining issues of intersectionality, such as economic, social, and cultural rights, civil and political rights, minority rights including disability rights, rights of the girl-child, as well as LGBTQI+ and migrant rights, reparations, impact of violence, and access to essential services like health, food, and housing, with various human rights issues, including economic, social, cultural, and civil-political rights. It presents the plight of children in street situations as a human rights concern, offering guidance on utilising international legal sources in rights claims procedures. The study also integrates sociological and political perspectives with legal and governmental policy issues, examining the influence of external factors such as conditional lending and structural adjustment programmes, wars, and decolonisation on social policies and their consequent impact on children and families by rendering children in street situations 'visible' as a distinct category requiring urgent attention in State policy formulation. By systematically integrating international legal instruments with practical policy considerations and applications concerning children in street situations, this scholarly work serves as a comprehensive legal framework for State governments, their bodies and social workers, and a valuable advocacy guide for interest groups including non-governmental organisations, proposing future directions for policy and research for addressing the rights and needs of children in street situations.